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How Rolustech Used Add-Ons to Grow Their Business

Posted by on August 27, 2015

Add-ons for SugarCRM have been around from almost Day 1 when they launched over ten years ago.

Many companies created these add-ons as a direct result from existing client projects. They then promoted these solutions in the hope of generating more consulting leads.

Ten years later this hasn’t changed much, apart from better overall quality add-ons. What has changed is how companies are now connecting more effectively with prospective clients.

I chatted with Rolustech’s CTO, Shahrukh Riaz, about how the company has grown since joining in early 2013 and turned their add-on business into a better lead generation tool for them.

Focus on Both Products and Services

What makes Rolustech unique in today’s SugarCRM ecosystem is how they have focused on and leveraged their product side of the business to also grow their services side.

They have a number of popular add-ons including RT GSync, RT Telephony, and RT SalesMap.

In addition to add-ons, they offer a full roster of SugarCRM solutions.

“We are official SugarCRM Partners with one of the largest team of certified SugarCRM experts. We can help with SugarCRM Engineering, Migration, Training, Consultancy, Hosting and Support. We also help businesses in mapping their processes onto SugarCRM through customizations and integrations as well as developing custom CRM products for industry verticals. We also provide on-site support in the EU/US/UK.”

What Not to Focus On

Shahrukh knew that in order to really execute on their strategy they couldn’t waste time on building the infrastructure to support an add-on business.

“SugarOutfitters was the only formal private platform where we could actually sell our plugin and not worry about the logistics of the transaction. SugarExchange does not own or facilitate the transaction and I felt that SugarOutfitters had a great edge in that sense. Today SugarOutfitters continues to meet our expectations.“

Rolustech recognized early on that their efforts are better spent focused on their core business and building out better products and services.

SugarOutfitters handled the platform side of things so that they could stay focused on the larger picture.

“SugarOutfitters is a great platform for us to market and sell our plugins.”

How They Tie It All Together

Their philosophy to how add-ons should be refined is refreshingly positive. Rolustech acknowledges that a great user experience with one of their add-ons can, and does, lead to additional services.

It’s something that we see time and time again at SugarOutfitters. A positive experience with an add-on gets associated to the name behind the add-on.

Users know that when an add-on is well polished and does a nice job that the people behind the add-on will also be as well polished and easy to work with. This often leads to customizations and/or additional services.

As Shahrukh notes:

“Our services relationships start with customizations for an add-on. They then start sending us other customization work as well. “

To make it all work they dedicate staff to the support and development of add-ons. This separates them from many other SugarCRM partners. They observed that having a person move between services and product produces not just sub-par work, but also a sub-par user experience for their add-on users.

Users don’t want to be passed around when they need help or have their unique case dropped for extended periods of time while support works on a certain services project.

Because of Rolustech’s emphasis on a great user experience they are able to have a consistent message and experience which opens the door to turning those experiences into services upsell opportunities.

I had the pleasant opportunity to speak with Shahrukh at length while we walked around San Francisco at this past year’s SugarCon when he shared some news that excites me as it wasn’t one of the original intents of SugarOutfitters when I helped to co-found it back in 2012.

He shared with me some of the projects that Rolustech is working on for clients as a direct result of those clients finding and engaging with them on SugarOutfitters.

One particular result of SugarOutfitters cultivating that relationship stuck with me:

“We have done approximately $50K in business with one client alone so far in the past year. “

Not a bad ROI for listing some add-ons.

What’s Next?

Shahrukh has big dreams for Rolustech and is investing even more into their add-ons business.

They plan on growing their add-on business by over 6 times over the next 6 months.

In addition to that, they are continuing to rollout successful projects such implementations for auto car dealerships and verticals for the telecom industry.

Interested in learning more about Rolustech? Check out their customer testimonials. Their work speaks for themself.

Rolustech Add-ons:

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